Tens of Thousands Rally against Netanyahu Government in Jerusalem

Anti-government protesters launch a prolonged demonstration calling for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu's government to resign and a general election in the wake of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, March 31, 2024. (Reuters)
Anti-government protesters launch a prolonged demonstration calling for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu's government to resign and a general election in the wake of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, March 31, 2024. (Reuters)
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Tens of Thousands Rally against Netanyahu Government in Jerusalem

Anti-government protesters launch a prolonged demonstration calling for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu's government to resign and a general election in the wake of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, March 31, 2024. (Reuters)
Anti-government protesters launch a prolonged demonstration calling for Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu's government to resign and a general election in the wake of the deadly October 7 attack on Israel by the Palestinian group Hamas and the ensuing war in Gaza, in front of the Knesset, the Israeli parliament, in Jerusalem, March 31, 2024. (Reuters)

Tens of thousands of people demonstrated in Jerusalem on Sunday against Benjamin Netanyahu's government and against exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish men from military service, in scenes reminiscent of mass street protests last year.

Protest groups, including some that led the mass demonstrations that rocked Israel in 2023, organized the rally outside parliament, the Knesset, calling for a new election to replace the government.

The protesters also want a more equal share in the burden of army service that binds most Israelis. Around 600 soldiers have been killed so far since the Hamas attack of Oct. 7 and the ensuing war in Gaza, the military's highest casualty toll in years.

Israel's N12 News said it appeared to be the largest demonstration since the war began. Haaretz and Ynet news sites said it drew tens of thousands of people.

Netanyahu's cabinet has faced widespread criticism over the security failure of the Hamas attack on southern Israel in which 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 taken hostage to Gaza.

"This government is a complete and utter failure," said 74-year-old Nurit Robinson, at the rally. "They will lead us into the abyss."

Israel's war in the Palestinian enclave has aggravated a longstanding source of friction in society that is also unsettling Netanyahu's coalition government - exemptions granted to ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from service in the country's conscript military.

With a March 31 deadline looming for the government to come up with legislation to resolve a decades-long standoff over the issue, Netanyahu filed a last-minute application to the Supreme Court last week or a 30-day deferment.

In an apparent accommodation, the Supreme Court gave government officials until April 30 to submit additional arguments. But, in an interim ruling, it also ordered a suspension of state funding for seminary students who would be liable for conscription from Monday.

Protesters were waving blue and white Israeli flags and chanting "elections now".

At a news conference in Jerusalem, Netanyahu said he was confident a solution will be found. He also said that holding an election at the height of war, when he said Israel was so close to victory, would paralyze the country for months.

In Tel Aviv, some families of hostages and their supporters, blocked a main highway, protesting against what they described as Netanyahu's failure to return their loved ones.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."